Tait Hoyem
4 years ago
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---
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title: "Orca, Emacspeak and Chromium Accessibility on A Raspberry Pi Running Manjaro ARM"
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keywords: "orca linux raspberry-pi rpi raspberry pi screen reader screen-reader 64 bit 64-bit 64bit aarch64 emacs emacspeak manjaro manjaro-arm manjaro-aarch64"
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layout: post
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draft: true
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---
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I wanted to get a gift for my blind friend who has been interested in learning Linux for a while now.
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Just when I was about to start looking for a gift I decided to take a look at [Brian Lunduke's newest video](https://lbry.tv/@Lunduke:e/raspberry-pi-400-looks-rad:c) featuring the [Raspberry Pi 400](https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400/?resellerType=home).
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The Raspberry Pi 400 has come full circle in terms of computing.
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It is a keyboard. All the computing is done from within the keyboard.
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Much like the Comodore64, this computer comes without a screen but is still technically fully functional without one.
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I had my 'Aha!' moment and decided that could be a very cool gift.
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## Distribution
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I wanted to choose something which will age well, and run the latest and greatest.
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Some Raspberry Pi Orca installation guides [like this one](https://techesoterica.com/getting-the-orca-screen-reader-working-on-a-raspberry-pi-4-with-raspbian-buster-and-the-mate-desktop/),
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have actually asked the user to _compile from source_ to get the latest Orca version due to how out-of-date Debian's package repositories are.
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A distribution which has none of these fusses was top priority,
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especially because Orca receives a lot of updates and it would make sense to not lag behind for the most critical piece of software.
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I decided to go with [Manjaro ARM Xfce](https://manjaro.org/download/#raspberry-pi-4-xfce):
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* Xfce is lightweight (especially good for a VI user who will be using the screen reader).
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* Runs the 64-bit kernel instead of Raspberry Pi OS's 32-bit kernel.
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* Is based on Arch Linux, so receives very frequent package updates.
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* Has the AUR ([with some effort](#aur), as we'll see).
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The only downside of Manjaro ARM, and likewise other Aarch64 architecture kernels is that it did not have HEVC nor H264 hardware decoding available.
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Apparently this is getting mainlined in Linux kernel 5.10, but I still don't quite understand how it works as using 5.10-rc4 did not activate it.
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I suppose time will tell by end of year how this will be implemented.
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## Orca
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The minimum requirement for a visually impaired desktop Linux user is a screen reader.
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The most used screen reader for Linux is Orca, headed by the [GNOME Project](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca).
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This is relatively easy to install with standard `pacman` commands.
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<pre class="terminal">
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# pacman -S orca
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</pre>
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If logged in via SSH, you can start Orca with the `orca` command. This will start reading the screen to you so you can do the next parts.
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To activate Orca on login and on LightDM activation, add it to the LightDM GTK+ Greeter Settings application on the Misc. menu.
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This will start it when the LightDM login system starts.
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LightDM's Orca will not help us once we are logged in however.
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To activate Orca on login, open the Session And Startup application, and add Orca to the "startup" list of apps.
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### TODO: add commands
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And now Orca will be activated on boot and login.
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## AUR
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To get the AUR working, we need to install the `pacaur` helper.
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This merited its own article, so check that out here:
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[How to Install Pacaur on Manjaro ARM](/2020/12/01/pacaur-rpi.html)
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##
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@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
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---
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title: "Orca, Emacspeak and Chromium Accessibility on A Raspberry Pi Running Manjaro ARM"
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keywords: "orca linux raspberry-pi rpi raspberry pi screen reader screen-reader 64 bit 64-bit 64bit aarch64 emacs emacspeak manjaro manjaro-arm manjaro-aarch64"
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layout: post
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draft: true
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---
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I wanted to get a gift for my blind friend who has been interested in learning Linux for a while now.
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Just when I was about to start looking for something I decided to take a look at [Brian Lunduke's newest video](https://lbry.tv/@Lunduke:e/raspberry-pi-400-looks-rad:c) featuring the [Raspberry Pi 400](https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-400/?resellerType=home).
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The Raspberry Pi 400 has come full circle in terms of computing.
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It is a keyboard. All the computing is done from within the keyboard.
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Much like the Comodore64, this computer comes without a screen but is still technically fully functional without one.
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I had my 'Aha!' moment, and decided that the Raspberry Pi 400 would be a very cool present.
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## No Headphone Jack
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My first problem was that the Raspberry Pi 400 does not come with a headphone jack,
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even though every other Raspberry Pi A/B/B+ board with the exception of the compute modules and Zero series have included one.
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That said, the Raspberry Pi audio jacks are also known to crackle and pop due to either bad drivers or cheap manufacturing.
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To compensate, I got an external USB audio card.
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I ended up going with the [DuKabel USB to 3.5mm Jack Adapter (Amazon)](https://www.amazon.ca/DuKabel-ProSeries-Mic-Supported-Headphone-External/dp/B07RS11M1T/).
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There are cheaper options for sure, but when I was looking around Raspberry Pi forums and Amazon reviews, this specific model seemed to come out on top in terms of performance.
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It costed me around 40 Canadian dollars.
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I figure this isn't too bad considering my friend doesn't need a screen, haha!
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## Distribution
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I wanted to choose something which will age well, and run the latest and greatest.
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For visually impaired users, the most important piece of software is the screen reader. If the screen reader doesn't work, the rest of the work is toast!
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Some Raspberry Pi Orca installation guides [like this one](https://techesoterica.com/getting-the-orca-screen-reader-working-on-a-raspberry-pi-4-with-raspbian-buster-and-the-mate-desktop/),
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have actually asked the user to _compile Orca from source_ to get the latest version due to how out-of-date Debian's package repositories are.
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A distribution which has none of these fusses was top priority,
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especially because Orca receives frequent updates.
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I decided to go with [Manjaro ARM Xfce](https://manjaro.org/download/#raspberry-pi-4-xfce):
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* Xfce is lightweight.
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* Runs a 64-bit kernel.
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* Is based on Arch Linux, so receives very frequent package updates.
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* Has the AUR ([with some effort](#aur), as we'll see).
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The only downside of Manjaro ARM, and likewise other Aarch64 (ARM 64-bit) architecture kernels is that it did not have HEVC nor H264 hardware decoding available.
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Apparently, support for the Raspberry Pi's VC4 graphics is getting mainlined [in Linux kernel 5.10](https://www.debugpoint.com/2020/12/linux-kernel-5-10-features/).
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Unfortunately, running the release candidate (RC) kernel did not make the Raspberry Pi 400 use hardware decoding.
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Perhaps other applications like `ffmpeg` and Chromium need to add support as well before this works.
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## Orca
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As stated before, minimum requirement for a visually impaired desktop Linux user is a screen reader.
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The most used screen reader for Linux is Orca, headed by the [GNOME Project](https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca).
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This is relatively easy to install with a standard `pacman` command.
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<pre class="terminal">
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# pacman -S orca
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</pre>
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If logged in via SSH, you can start Orca with the `orca` command. This will start reading the screen to you so you can do the next parts.
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To activate Orca on login with LightDM, enable it in the 'LightDM GTK+ Greeter Settings' application. The 'Misc.' tab will have a drop-down for asking which screen reader you want to use.
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This will start Orca when the LightDM login system starts.
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LightDM's Orca will not help us once we are logged in however.
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To activate Orca on login, open the 'Session And Startup application' program, then add Orca to the "startup" list of apps.
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And now Orca will be activated on boot and login.
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## AUR
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The AUR, or the Arch User Repository has community maintained and distributed packages.
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Basically, you download a file which will tell your computer how to download, build and install a package for you.
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To get the AUR working in a more automatic way, we need to install the `pacaur` helper.
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This merited its own article, so check that out here:
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[How to Install Pacaur on Manjaro ARM](/2020/12/01/pacaur-rpi.html)
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The TL;DR is that we need to open the `/etc/makepkg.conf` file and replace any mention of `-march=armv8-a` with `-march=armv8-a+crypto`.
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This can be done as a oneliner, thanks to the `sed` command.
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<pre class="terminal">
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# sed -i 's/-march=armv8-a/-march=armv8-a+crypto/' /etc/makepkg.conf
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</pre>
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## Emacspeak
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[Emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) is a scriptable document editor run by the [GNU Project](https://gnu.org/).
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Infamous for its high learning curve though it may be,
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there is a very extensive speech extension for it called [Emacspeak](http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/).
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Emacspeak is built entirely by [T. V. Ramen](https://tvraman.github.io/vita/resume.html) and has been freely available since its inception in 1999.
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Due to its age (and thus maturity), Emacspeak is an important tool in any "eyes-free" software developer toolkit.
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Lucky for me, Emacspeak appears to not only to be available in the AUR,
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but also compilable with the Aarch64 architecture---the architecture of the Raspberry Pi 400.
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So this is as easy to install as:
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<pre class="terminal">
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$ pacaur -S emacspeak
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</pre>
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## Web Browsers
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I'll cover a couple web browsers here based on how they worked.
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### Firefox
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Firefox will run in accessibility mode with [caret browsing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caret_navigation) enabled automatically when it detects Orca is running.
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This makes Firefox _by far_ the best browser for the job.
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### Chromium
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Chromium... Ugh. So it works, sort of.
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You need to enable two special flags, and add an environment variable.
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To do this, I suggest editing the main profile in `/etc/profile`.
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Add the following line to the end of that file:
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<pre class="file">
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export ENABLE_ACCESSIBILITY=1
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</pre>
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Next, add two flags to the `$HOME/.config/chromium-flags.conf` file.
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<pre class="file">
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--force-renderer-accessibility
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--enable-caret-browsing
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</pre>
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You will need to relog to set the ENABLE_ACCESSIBILITY environment variable. Now Chromium should work with Orca.
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### Badwolf
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The [Badwolf browser](https://www.mankier.com/1/badwolf)
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is based on the WebkitGTK engine, as opposed to Firefox's Gecko and Google's Blink engines.
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It _almost_ works out of the box. It is really fast compared to the other two,
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but it lacks some features like announcing a page is done loading and it doesn't appear to support caret browsing,
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which will cause some other problems.
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Interesting though for such a young browser to have a minimal level of accessibility so early!
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I would be interested where this goes in the future.
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## Conclusion
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It took a bit of messing around to get this working, but I'm glad I did!
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Now I can nerd out with another Linux friend and given how well they seem to find problems with accessibility, hopefully a few upstream patches can be made.
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Happy hacking, for everyone!
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